Published in The Daily Observer on Sunday, 8 March 2015.
Garment workers still sweat to have minimum living
Saifunnahar Sumi
It created uproar in the country’s burgeoning garment industry when minimum monthly salary of a worker was raised to Tk 5,300 one year and two months ago following a series of protests and shutdowns by factory hands pushing their demands.
But soon it was revealed that the enhanced wages were still inadequate to bear minimum standard of life by the workers, mostly women, who need to spend 56 per cent of their income on non-food items and rest 44 per cent on food expenditure.
Tania Akter (30), a worker of The Exclusive Fashion Ware Knit Ltd hailing from Pirozpur, is a minimum salaried garment employee. She spends her total money for housing and food.
“I earn Tk 5,300 and spend Tk 1,200 for housing, 2,000 for food, Tk 500 for cosmetics and entertainment and the rest I send home,” Tania said.
Shahida Begum (20), a pregnant garment worker of Jeans Care Ltd, earns Tk 5,500 and she gives the total money to her husband for maintaining their five-member family.
“I give all the money of my salary to my husband and I do not save any money for myself. My husband maintains all my expenses,” Shahida told this correspondent.
They (garment workers) spend at least 19 per cent of their wages for housing, 6 per cent for educational expense, 4.6 percent for fuel (electricity, gas, kerosene oil) and dress some 3.9 per cent of their wage is spent on personal things (make up, recreation), mobile phone expense is 3.6 per cent, medical 3.4 per cent and transport 2 per cent, said Khondaker Golam Moazzem, additional research director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
They spend 12.7 per cent for rice, 10 per cent for animal, 5.6 per cent for vegetable from their salary. They don’t get urban facilities such as government primary school, low cost educational institute, public hospital etc but their expenditure is high as they live in urban areas, he said.
There is no industrial cluster based special facilities in the garment areas but the workers pay out more for their children’s education, treatment and at the end of the month, the workers have no savings.
“The garment workers get minimum wage of Tk 5,300 but this is not living wage. In our country the minimum wage concept is not clear. Long term needs can be met if the minimum wage is defined by ILO standard. Living wage includes ability to reproduce energy, maintain four-member family and at the same time savings,” said Khondaker Golam Moazzem.
Women labour participation has sharply increased in Bangladesh among South Asian countries in the last decades with the continuous development of the garments sector.
Women workers of garment factories now have income earner status like men and expenditure for girls has increased and the women workers now enjoy freedom in maintaining family through decision making.
The women worker’s contribution is more than men’s in family as they always spend their salaries for their children’s education, health etc. They try to have saving even ignoring their make-up, recreation expenditure.
Due to the high housing costs, workers are compelled to live in unhygienic slums or in houses far away from their factories.
“The women workers face the most difficulties. Often, four or five workers are found living in a single, dilapidated room in “inhuman” conditions. As for workers who have families, each family lives in a single room as well, with facilities such as kitchens and bathrooms shared with other similar units.
Every time there had been a wage hike in the sector, it was accompanied by an instant rise in housing costs, Moazzem said. “So, there would be no tangible improvement in the workers’ quality of life after the wage rise.”
“These workers are part of a global chain that produces world-class products. They don’t deserve such appalling conditions, with the rapid development of garments sector, it is also needed to consider the wage as living wage,” Moazzem added.
But like it was every time before, the garment industry owners made an outcry over the last salary hike, saying it would be an almost unmanageable expenditure burden on them. But eventually they gave in though the workers say they are still disadvantaged and dismayed by poor wage and benefits.